The final frontier

Salmon Scotland chief executive Tavish Scott highlights the work being done to protect Scotland’s iconic wild salmon.

Captain James T Kirk: it is a name from one’s youth, depending on age.

Or if one is the same age as my kids, a baffled look along the lines of “gosh Dad, you are old.”

In the classic sci-fi series Star Trek, Kirk promised to boldly go where no man has gone before. The actor William Shatner, a Canadian, has just done that.

In response to the Canadian federal government’s appalling decision to ban salmon farming sea pens in British Columbia, Shatner has released a foul-mouthed rant on social media attacking, in Anglo-Saxon terms, the salmon sector – and, by definition, the thousands of Canadians who work in it.

Unfortunately, the Trudeau government has taken a decision based on politics, not science or jobs.

The Canadian Liberals currently have MPs in Vancouver and other affluent areas in BC – but the party is way behind in the opinion polls and an election is looming.

As with all political parties in trouble (see the Conservatives in the UK today or Labour after the 2015 defeat), they are appealing to their political base. But this political decision risks jobs and livelihoods and will hurt coastal communities the most.

Trudeau’s Liberals have encouraged rich, fashionable anti-salmon farming activists to use recognisable faces to attack the sector in this foul-mouthed manner.

Of course, Shatner is quite entitled to make his point.

He is extremely rich and doesn’t want for anything in life, and people will make up their own mind on his motivations.

But what is unacceptable is the language used. People going to work in any walk of life do not deserve abuse whether they be a former Hollywood A-lister or a hard-working Canadian fish farmer.

Yet Shatner and co have called open house on the men and women of the BC sector.

I hope that normal Canadians will see this for what it is: rich egos dictating what the working man or women should think.

Protecting wild salmon
What this brings home back here in Scotland is the need for our sector to work hand and glove with local communities.

Our member companies run fantastic local initiatives to support the communities where they are based, recognising the importance of being good neighbours.

And as a sector, we arrange initiatives such as Salmon Scotland’s Wild Fisheries Fund.

Almost £1400,000 has been granted to organisations across the country this year from the fund to help save iconic wild salmon and sea trout.

The fund is part of a £1.5 million commitment from Scotland’s salmon farmers to support the conservation, restoration, and sustainable management of wild fish numbers.

River Bladnoch, Scotland

Galloway Fisheries Trust has received £22,700 to tackle high acidity levels threatening fish numbers on the River Bladnoch; Tighnabruaich-based Otter Ferry Seafish has been awarded £49,404 to work with Argyll wild fisheries experts to develop a gene bank to boost threatened salmon populations; and community landowners Urras Oighreachd Chàrlabhaigh (Carloway Estate Trust) and Uig Lodge Lettings have each received grants.

Scotland’s salmon farmers are determined to find solutions, engaging constructively with the wild fish sector and taking meaningful action to save wild salmon.

We actively contribute to reversing this decline by supporting community-led projects to restore our rivers and lochs, making a positive global impact.

I doubt Shatner is aware of this vital work which is taking place.

Starship USS Enterprise

But we will certainly make sure that MSPs are aware of it when the Scottish Parliament Rural Affairs and Islands committee meets with the sector following the summer recess.

To date, the committee has heard from a number of witnesses, including activist groups determined to spread misinformation and shut us down.

I look forward to providing factual information to MSPs in the autumn.

One of the issues that has repeatedly come up has been the issue of declining wild salmon numbers.

MSP Elena Whitham asked if environment regulator SEPA had “identified any evidence of significant harm to wild salmon from farmed salmon sites”.

I was pleased that Lin Bunten, Chief Operating Officer for Regulation, Business and Environment with SEPA, responded to the committee: “I am not aware of a direct link between farmed salmon and wild salmon per se.”

The latest data from the Scottish Government shows that catches of wild salmon are the lowest ever since records began in 1952.

But since 2010, the decline of wild salmon catches from rivers on Scotland’s east coast – hundreds of miles from the nearest salmon farm – is at exactly the same rate as the declines from rivers within the salmon farming heartland.

If salmon farms were responsible for the decline in wild fish numbers, then surely the rate of decline would be seen to a much greater extent on the west coast?

The fact that the figures show that isn’t the case is an inconvenient truth for the anti-salmon activists here at home, and the celebrities in Canada.

William Shatner video still

When I think back to the adventures of Captain Kirk, boldly going where no one had gone before, I recall just how many intergalactic scrapes the crew of the Starship Enterprise got into.

Leadership was required, yes, but vitally so was teamwork and collaboration.

It is collaboration that is key to reversing the decline in wild salmon numbers, and Shatner and his friends would do well to remember that.

Tavish Scott is Chief Executive, Salmon Scotland.